[Kurona]

This is the episode I most remember for the flanderisation most heavily settling in.

Hibiki's characters... I'm not gonna act like they were all incredibly complex, but they were all very grounded. It's something I joke about Hibiki a lot; that it's a show about demons with musical instruments beating up giant spiders, but also it's easily the most laidback, down to earth, realistic Rider show. Todoroki, for instance, he is a little dim and a little naive; but in a way that you could imagine him being a real person. He's very normal; just someone who needs a bit more experience to be the Oni he wants to be.

Aaaand here he's devolved completely into a cartoonish comic relief character who mugs for the camera and is so stupid he thinks his crush wants a giant fish as a present, whoa-ho-ho isn't that so wacky and funny! I'm fine with a little change in pace, but there's just no resemblance here to the Todoroki that came before. Where his naivety and relative foolishness were previously just some of the aspects that informed his character, they've now been dialed up to 11 and define him now. We saw it in the last couple episodes too with Kogure -- that guy is completely out of place in a season like this. If he was in episode 17 or 25 we would have been reeling from the sudden tone shift, and I don't appreciate it any more just because it's been a few episodes since the original creative team left.

It's not too surprising given this is often how Inoue writes his characters, and that's not an insult -- when it's a series he's actually writing, and it's not about vampires, he does very well with it! His work on Agito and Ryuki was fantastic most of the time, and I've come to respect everything 555 does even if I personally don't vibe with it - hi Fish! - but like Kuuga, this is not a season Inoue was a good fit for at all. And even isolated, even viewed through a lens of Hibiki 1-29 not existing (please god no), this is easily some of his most dire work. A lot of it feels like his tropes just thrown out hastily onto the script; I just can't get anything out of this other than "this sure is an Inoue story about dating which gives me secondhand embarrassment every two seconds and the title character somehow turned into a fucking idiot".

... I'm glad you found something to like in it, though!